The autumn leaves are falling like rain. Although my neighbors are all barbarians and you, you are a thousand miles away, there are always two cups at my table.

T’ang Dynasty poem

Ten thousand flowers in spring, the moon in autumn, a cool breeze in summer, snow in winter. If your mind isn't clouded by unnecessary things, this is the best season of your life.

~ Wu-men ~

Saturday, September 14, 2013

Comparing Martial Arts Practices

As a martial arts student, you're always anxious to improve your practice; to be the best you can be. Then we fall into a trip. We ask others what they are doing and how they are training and we can't help but to compare ourselves to them.One way or the other, comparing ourselves to others will certainly make us unhappy because of human nautre.Below is an excerpt from a post at Zen Habits. The full article may be read here. Please pay a visit.

The Futility of Comparing Yourself to Others

Picture it: you see photos of what someone else is doing on Facebook
and think your life isn’t exciting enough. You see someone else who has a
cool job and think you’re not doing that great in your career. You see
someone with a hotter body, and feel bad about yours. You see someone
who has created an awesome business, and think you’re not doing enough.
You read about people who are traveling the world, learning languages,
going to exotic resorts and restaurants, and wonder why you’re not.

Of course, you’re comparing your reality to an ideal, a fantasy.

It’s not a comparison that makes sense. You can’t compare apples to
apples when you compare yourself to anyone else. Which means it’s a dumb
comparison — why would you compare how tangy an orange is compared to a
beach? They’re not similar things.

Let’s take an example: I’m out running in the park, and I see someone
running past me. Obviously he’s a faster runner, and better than me!
Oh, that makes me feel horrible about myself as a runner!

2 comments:

Rick, thanks for posting this and turning me on to Leo Babauta. This guy is amazing, both in how he writes and how he freely shares it with the world.

One of the first things I was taught in Aikido is that we should train at our own speed, and not worry about someone else's progress or rank. So easy to say, so hard to do sometimes! But that's part of the training, too.